Meet
Chani Seals

Associate Principal

Chani S. Seals, JD, is a committed healthcare consulting professional with over a decade of progressive leadership in healthcare advocacy, regulatory development, and strategy and operations consulting.

Her work spans federal agencies, non-profit organizations, and healthcare-focused corporations.

Chani supports clients with regulatory and legal strategic consultation that includes providing guidance and analysis on operational impact and contractual risk assessments. Her experience includes government affairs, disability advocacy, administrative law, appeals management, and audit and operational compliance as a senior healthcare consultant. Most recently, she served as a senior appeals and regulatory consultant and trusted advisor with a consulting firm with Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Center for Program Integrity as her primary client. During her tenure, she developed CMS operational guidance, provided training, managed risk adjustment data validation appeals, consulted with the Department of Justice and Office of the General Counsel on impending litigation, and drafted the impending risk adjustment data validation rule addressing payment methodology.

At Avalere, she has used her foundational knowledge and transferable skills to provide research and strategic guidance to life science companies. She provides support to companies who are interested in the impact and intersection of federal and state policies and regulations on corporate policy initiatives, health equity, and operational and technical process efficiencies. She is equipped with a perspective that helps her develop strategic solutions for complex Medicare and Medicaid payment related issues, corporate regulatory impact, and corporate operations and compliance.

Chani is an honors graduate of The Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs and also a graduate of The Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas.

Authored Content


The second installment of our Health Plan series examines how clinical care will shift in reaction to changes in demographics, technology, and environmental factors.

The first installment of our Health Plans series explains how plans can evolve their approaches to provider contracting and utilization management for the future.

Plans adapt to market changes in risk adjustment coding. Interviews with plan professionals reveal three trends for efficiency, effectiveness, and compliance.

Avalere experts explore how key policy changes, such as the Risk Adjustment Data Validation final rule, Inflation Reduction Act, and Medicare Advantage payment shifts, are shaping the landscape for health plans.

The accuracy of the CMS-HCC model differs by beneficiaries’ race and ethnicity.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which challenges Chevron deference.

Conflicting court rulings regarding FDA approval of mifepristone, part of the regimen for medication abortion, may set a new precedent for product approvals.

Policy changes included in the final MA RADV rule will substantially affect the MA program, plan benefit design, and operations.

If finalized as proposed, the changes to the Risk Adjustment Data Validation process could have a substantial impact on Medicare Advantage plans and enrollees.

Avalere analysis shows that the COVID-19 pandemic had disproportionate impacts by race and ethnicity on Medicare enrollees.

Surprise and balance billing reform efforts have been a subject of ongoing debate at the federal level.